Fatal Attraction
by Bloodshot Eyes
Summary: What started as an education in murder degenerates further into a game of manipulation that promises to kill all the players. B and Light cooperate to destroy the detective with whom they are both obsessed, only to find that they've sprung their own trap.
1. First Taste

A/N - This fic was rushed off in a few hours (which is fast for me!) after I saw Xhadow Kiss's video "B Makes Bad Look Good". The site is in my profile. It has a disturbingly catchy tune for the rather morbid theme, and I just had to write about it.

They really need to have Beyond listed under the Characters topic. I've used him as a main player in THREE fics now, and I can never select him! For heaven's sake, they have _Ukita_ listed under Characters! Who writes about him as a lead?!

* * *

Fatal Attraction

* * *

There was no denying that something about L had been completely untouchable, unreachable in a way. B was down to earth, B was human, even if his eyes made him something else, a true god of death, whereas he was only a pretender.

After all, B was an outright murderer and Kira only killed from afar, even if he had killed thousands more than any murderer in history.

In that way, B was more powerful than he was. B suffered no delusions about humanity being either good or evil. Humanity simply was, and it wasn't up for debate. He shot down Light's shoddy argument with cool flippancy, and perhaps that was what made the older man so dangerous. Light, Kira even, had no control over him. His identity and true name were as unknown as L's were; even if he hadn't intended it, it was another way that he was immune to Kira's danger. It was frustrating to Light, and somehow appealing in a way that L was not.

There was death in B's eyes, near-certain death in just being near him, for his mind was clearly unhinged even if he appeared frighteningly sane. His reasoning was sound and his actions devoid of the manic insanity that was so characteristic of movie psychos. B was a true psychopath; his world existed for him, and no one and nothing else meant anything to him.

He had to remember things like this when he started to admire that brilliantly flawed mind and found the blood-encrusted fingers at Light's throat instead of in B's mouth. B would do this occasionally, as if he was testing Light's decision to stay with him. Those fingers would trail up his throat so enticingly even if they smelt of blood; Light was learning to ignore it. It was better than antagonizing him by telling him to clean up before touching him. It was part of the appeal, after all, for B surrounded himself with humanity. Kira killed from afar, never seeing his victims' faces when they died, and L dispensed justice from hundreds of miles away or behind concrete and aliases. B got up close and personal. B knew what it looked like to see someone die, see the life fade out of someone's eyes. B had taken life away from someone with his own two hands, unarmed, just to see if he could do it. He took apart the human body, joint by joint, ripping organs from their hiding places inside their fleshy womb, discarding them when they satisfied his curiosity about his own physical makeup. He tasted his victims' blood and tears to see if they were different from anyone else's. He made experiments out of killing people to see to what extent they could survive torture.

It was dangerous to be so vulnerable around someone so deadly, but Light could not resist. Something in every moment he spent with B screamed for him to get away while he still could, for B had no reason to keep him around and could kill him at any time. Something else in Light wanted to linger, wanted to see how much he could find out about this enigma who was even more fascinating than L. Perhaps he considered the constant threat to his life fair payment for the alleviation of his boredom, which had threatened to kill him anyway. B might never ever say that he was going to kill Light, but the genius was not stupid enough to ignore the possibility when he associated with a serial killer.

Serial killer, mass murderer. Their methods could not have been more different, but B's method had its appeal. He had gone along with B one day, the other claiming he had something to show him.

It was a corpse, nothing more, nothing less. B explained that the dead man was only a meal ticket, a source of money to B. He said that it was the man's day to die anyway, B had just helped him along. The man's throat was a ruin, cut to ribbons by the blade that was sluggishly dripping blood in B's hands.

"Look at him, Light. Look into his eyes." Light looked and felt nothing other than mild disgust that he could smell urine from the man's voided bladder, only faintly disguised by the smell of blood. His eyes didn't linger long on the man's throat; the sight of blood didn't make him _that_ squeamish, but…

Light turned to the side and vomited, one hand resting against the alley wall for support. It didn't take long for his last meal be lost to the brickwork beneath his feet. His throat ached with the sudden violence of it, but B's arms clenched suddenly around his waist and he forgot the pain. B hauled him around as though he weighed nothing and half-dangled him over the corpse.

"Look at him, Light. Don't look away until you know exactly what a dead man looks like. This is reality, not some game you're playing." Light spasmed once as the sight consumed his vision again when he'd so recently been ill, but B's grip was quite strong. He looked down and stared, noting what had probably been a series of quick slashes to the man's throat, the flesh peeling back from the ravaged muscle and mess of arteries beneath.

All his high and mighty ideals meant little when he couldn't even look on a man's corpse without being sick. Kira's justice couldn't stand up to the reality of the crimes he was committing.

"Let me go," he whispered, unwilling to trip that switch he would probably never find in B. B pulled him upright, and Light shivered at the contact, more from the danger of being close to him than anything else. B released him and knelt at the corpse's side, pressing his palm to the man's throat, his fingers resting atop the man's shredded trachea.

His fingers came away wet with blood, and he grabbed Light's hand with those fingers. Light cringed inwardly at the feeling, but he concealed it behind a blank face as B pulled him down to his knees.

"Touch it," he whispered, his eyes alight. "Doesn't feel like you expected, does it?" Light shook his head, because it didn't. Blood was wet, like red water, not sticky or gluey like he had been led to believe. B dragged his hand with him and pressed it to the man's throat, sinking Light's hand into the mass of meat and ichor, and his stomach lurched again.

"Too much for you?" B asked, eying his paling face as he felt the blood rush out of it.

"No," he said forcefully, taking charge of his own hand and plunging it into the mess in defiance of the truth of B's words. _Dear gods…_ His breathing grew shaky as he forced himself not to think about what he was doing. Not to think about what made the flesh under his hands feel stringy or slippery, or what that hollow, slimy tunnel was, nor the hard little nodes.

"That's murder, Light. Not this killing that Kira does, not the executions that governments perform in sterile chambers." His gore-streaked hand smoothed a piece of hair back from Light's face in a rare gesture of affection. "Don't fear what's real." He brought his hands to his mouth and ran his tongue along his fingers, tasting the blood that stained them.

It transfixed him. He couldn't look away, his eyes caught even as his fingers were still resting half-inside the unfortunate man's throat. It was the lack of fear, the absence of humanity, that froze him in place. B's total disregard for laws and morality was appealing because he could do anything without fear. Not that Kira was afraid or a coward, but he was human, too human for Light's liking. Perhaps that was why he was allowing B to show him something else.

But was he allowing it, or being led along by this perversion of charisma that the other man possessed? The question didn't matter when he was staring shakily at B, his eyes looked on B's bloodshot orbs staring back at him as he licked the blood away in a darker parody of L licking melted chocolate off his fingers.

"Tomorrow, you make the kill, unless you're afraid." Light could hardly register the words, but he nodded. He wanted the lack of fear that B had, the strength to do whatever he wanted and damn the consequences, the power to be so untouchable.

Dammit, but B made it all look so good, and so easy.

* * *

B smiled to himself at the near-adoring look on Light's face. Kira and killer of hundreds he might be, but the boy had never sullied his hands with the blood of criminals, much less the innocents that B had. He had no right to call himself a murderer, though he didn't think the boy did. He had a god complex; he saw himself as a knight in shining armor, a savior of the worthy of humanity.

He was so deluded that it was precious, for someone so smart to have such a twisted and strangely romantic view of the world. In some ways, his mind was more damaged than B's own, for he saw the world as good and evil with no gray area. B saw everything in gray, worthless but for those whose deaths swiftly approached and would benefit him.

Seeing the naked fear, discomfort, and admiration on Light's features was incredibly attractive, though not in the traditional sense. B was not about to confess that he was in love with him or have a relationship with him, but he was willing to keep Light around short-term for the simple joy of seeing someone both sheltered and incredibly arrogant humbled by such a natural act as death.

Light was something new, and he would keep this wannabe murderer around until he ceased to amuse him. Or just until he really felt like seeing death in the eyes of someone he'd become close to, to any degree. After all, his chances of seeing L, someone he was truly obsessed with, die by his own hands were quite slim. Light could be a willing and acceptable substitute for now, whether the boy knew it or not. The boy's mind was malleable, for even now he was forcing himself to become comfortable with B's teachings, however gruesome they were.

How much more difficult would it be to get him to lie still under the knife?

* * *

He could see his death in B's eyes again, but it had ceased to frighten him. If he let fear control him, he was going to fail. He would continue to be a weak human rather than a god who stood outside it.

B probably needed to die after this was all over, since he was contributing to society's evils by killing rather than trying to improve it, but Light refused to contemplate it while the older man was teaching him.

"It's your turn," B hissed in his ear from behind him. Light repressed a shudder at the man's proximity, clutching B's own knife as security in his clammy hands. Normally he would never condone the cold-blooded killing of another human, but this death, like the deaths of the FBI agents, was necessary. It was forwarding his goals as a god, something detached and emotionless. He had grown too close to L during his captivity, and he was starting to second guess his decision to kill L as a result. Feelings of friendship or attraction were not characteristic of a god, and Light hated how he felt his resolve quake when he thought about killing the only friend he ever had.

When B was done with him, however, he would be strong, strong enough to get rid of his greatest rival without remorse.

"Go, it's his death day. His time's up. Get on with it." B's chant was getting on his nerves, but if he hadn't been frozen in place, B probably wouldn't insist on saying them. B finally shoved him, and he stumbled forward, breaking into a run with the momentum, forcing the uncertainty to the back of his mind. He couldn't stop now or he'd never succeed.

He went for the stomach, like B had said he should if he didn't think he could handle slitting his throat. It seemed safer to aim for a vague "center mass" rather than cutting him to ribbons. It went so fast, yet so slowly. One gloved hand clapped firmly to the man's mouth. B had warned that he would have to do that if he didn't cut his throat, for he would scream as he was dying. The knife slid smoothly in as he slammed blindly through the man's torso, aiming upward under the ribs to hit vital organs. His victim's body bucked, hard, and Light almost lost his grip on the man's face, which would have let the screams escape. He pulled the blade out, but the blood made it unexpectedly slippery and the man knocked it away while he fought in earnest for his life.

Cursing, he watched as B materialized beside him and snatched the blood-smeared, serrated knife from the ground. In a flicker, he had slashed upward into the man's midsection. Light counted himself lucky that he couldn't see what was making the blood splatter all over the ground before him. B moved in front of the man and stepped in close, his eyes wide, all the blood vessels broken and standing out in sharp relief against the whites of his eyes as he looked into Light's own. His face contorted as he stabbed ruthlessly, his face alive with murderous passion, and Light was hypnotized, his fingers falling slack as the man in his arms turned to dead weight, gravity pulling him out of Light's grasp. He was frozen in place, trapped in that gaze as B lowered his arms, his white shirt drenched at the bottom with the dead man's ichor and his knife hand soaked to the elbow.

"He was easy." B shrugged off the man's death. "Usually they fight more. People don't like to get killed." He bent and went through the man's pockets, pulling out a wallet, removing the cash, and putting it back.

"You're not worried about fingerprints?" Light's mind had to latch onto something other than the corpse in front of him.

"No one's fingerprinted me. I'm safe." He stood up swiftly and grinned at Light. "Why, worried?" He smeared his blood-covered hand across his mouth as Light shook his head.

Before he could say anything, B lunged forward and Light was being kissed, forcefully. There was blood in his mouth, the smell of copper and iron filling his nose as B snaked his tongue past Light's shocked lips, forcing him to taste it as well. Light felt his stomach lurch as sodden fabric pressed against him, blood soaking through his own shirt from B's, the other man's stained knife hand wrapping around his neck. The blood was still warm, he could feel it on the back of his neck, goosebumps prickling along his skin in response to the feel of the blade pressed against his chest as B kissed him.

His brain finally came back awake when B bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. He pulled away, shoving at B's shoulders with hands numb from shock, his chest heaving with forgotten breath.

"Dammit, B, what the hell was that for?" he wiped his face angrily with his now-ruined shirt. Anger would keep him from remembering what that kiss had felt like… hopefully.

"How did it feel?" B was grinning again, his eyes alight.

"Disgusting," he snapped, and B laughed a low, cold chuckle, one that made the hair on Light's neck stand up.

"Not the kiss, the killing." He looked askance at Light as he wiped the knife blade against the clean parts of his shirt. "I know you want to emulate me, Light, and you can't do it without getting your hands dirty. You have to saturate yourself with every aspect of it so it's as natural as breathing. How did it taste? How did it feel to overpower someone? How did it feel when he died? You have to remember it all, for when you know it inside and out, it will cease to frighten you."

Light stood there, his fingers clenched and his eyes focused on B as he spoke. He had to keep remembering that this was a growing process, an education from a murderer with an eerie connection to the only man he would call a friend. This man, with his brutal, animalistic ways, was going to give Light the power to create his new world by making him more than human.

It was worth a little discomfort to see that goal come true…

…maybe something else as well.

* * *

Light insisted that those he killed be criminals, for he didn't want to bloody his hands with too many innocents that would not directly affect his dreams of a new world. He told this to B over breakfast one day, and though the serial killer laughed at him, he didn't tell him that it was impossible. B would simply tell him the names of the people hanging around this part of the city, and Light would look up their records by hacking into the police files. B had moved into a bad area, claiming that no one cared about the people lost in a ghetto anyway. He had no fears of death or being robbed and preferred the practiced ignorance of the inhabitants, so the unsavory area didn't bother him at all even if Light was reluctant to leave without his company.

Three days and three kills later, and Light was sitting shaking at the crate that served as B's dining room table. It was getting somewhat easier to kill with time, but progress was slow. He wouldn't be here that long, for he didn't know how much longer his excuses to the Kira investigation team would hold out or how much longer B would tolerate him. Or how much longer he could tolerate B either.

_Speak of the devil…_ B walked in, carrying a few groceries from the gas station down the road. Light looked up at him, wanting to scream at him and scream for help at the same time. His nerves were shot.

B had pointed out a youth this morning, one that Light found had raped and stolen, which made him a prime target for Kira's justice even though he was only 18. Light had not yet killed someone so young with the Death Note, focusing on adults instead, and killing a youth in person took a lot of effort, especially when he knew that this had been a classmate of his at cram school, the very one he had contemplated killing that first day after finding the Death Note. Inexplicably, this knowledge had made his task more difficult, and B had not helped at all, leaning against a nearby wall while Light fought to kill someone with only a knife and strength of will. B insisted on the knife since it was far more personal than a gun and more certain than simply using one's hands.

He had walked back to his temporary home in a daze and thrown away yet another set of clothes. Buying cheap clothes that he didn't feel bad about throwing away was of paramount importance right now. Unlike B, he didn't like sitting in the blood of his victims for hours or even days sometimes, and he didn't trust the stains to wash out.

B had left him zip-tied in his bloody clothes after that first kill, telling him that it was another thing he had to get used to, since they both knew that if Light had a choice, he would have ripped those filthy clothes off at the first opportunity. Instead, he had fought the urge to curse him and suffered the humiliation in silence, committing the feeling to memory.

"You're staring, Light." B set the groceries down and glanced over his shoulder at him. "Thoughts?"

Light gritted his teeth. B knew he was attracted to his disposition, his personality if not his appearance, his forceful behavior. It annoyed him that the other man knew, but B had an interest of his own that he didn't try to disguise.

If it would help him grow stronger as Kira, it was worth it to know everything he could about how B worked. B made killing look easy, and his composure in the midst of slaughter was enviable. B hadn't been wrong earlier; Light wanted to emulate him.

Perhaps more than just that, as his mind wandered toward dangerous subjects. B reminded him of L, only human. Real and in front of him, whereas L was an untouchable, inhuman machine. He kept the world as far away as possible, distant even when Light had only been six feet away from him at the end of a chain. B was forever violating his personal space instead, as well as showing emotions when they spoke, so he was as different from L as night and day, except in appearance.

"Liiiight," B whispered, a soft chuckle escaping his lips with the sound. He had moved far too close to Light while he had been thinking, but Light could not find it within himself to object. Instead, he grabbed B's loose jeans around his knees and pulled him downward. B complied, a smirk on his face as though he was humoring Light while he knelt in front of him.

The danger was there, as real as ever, but it was not something to fear anymore as his heart started to pound. Then Light's hands were in B's hair, pulling him forward so their mouths could meet, clashing violently as lips were caught between teeth. At that point, the blood didn't bother either of them.

Light couldn't justify the madness that happened next, but maybe he didn't need to figure it out. Maybe it just needed to happen, and he let it.

* * *

B might have let Light initiate this, but if he thought he was dominating it, the boy was in for a surprise. He leaned forward on his knees, one hand coming up behind Light's head as he pushed Light off-balance, the boy's hands occupied with fisting in his hair and unable to stop himself from hitting the floor hard. Only B's hand kept him from cracking his head against the bare wood, but the wind was still knocked out of his lungs and he lay gasping under B's weight, his eyes looking a little lost as his fingers went slack. B sat up to get a better glimpse of the boy beneath him.

"You… jackass," Light hissed, blinking his eyes back into focus. He didn't make any attempt to get B off him, though, so B took advantage of the lull to slide his hands up under Light's shirt and start to pull it off.

"Tell me to stop, if it bothers you." B laughed lowly at the momentary indecision on Light's face before he threw caution to the wind and let B drag his shirt over his head. His chest was heaving, either with anticipation or nervousness, and B let his fingers trace the contours of it. Light's eyes fell to half-mast, his hands rising to divest B of his own top as he licked his punctured bottom lip.

"First time? You look a little nervous." His eyebrows rose condescendingly, and Light flushed in mixed embarrassment and fury, his eyes betraying the truth just by being so forcefully blank.

"Does it matter?" His words were clipped, irritated, and B shrugged.

"Not really, I wasn't going to waste time either way." Light blanched now, but he didn't ask what B meant by that. That was a good thing, since B had no intention of making this easy for him as he leaned back down, capturing Light's mouth with his own as his fingers found the top of his pants.

He was only keeping him around for amusement's sake, after all. He didn't give a damn about him one way or the other, except as a possible experiment.

Light bit down partway through his own fingers to stifle the screams later, his eyes rolled up into his head as he nearly fainted with the pain. B watched, his eyes always wide open, memorizing the details of his face and his agony for contemplation later. Light didn't disappoint; the sounds he made were delightful, and B traced the patterns of sweat down his forehead and tears down his cheeks with his fingers, savoring them. After B reached completion, he finished off Light, and the unabashed gratitude on the boy's face almost made him laugh with undisguised mirth.

The second and third times were much easier after that, especially after B dragged them to his bed rather than using the kitchen floor again. Light stopped leaving gouges in his fingers and actually enjoyed it, only moaning occasionally in pain. After B decided it was enough for one day, since it was getting dark anyway and they hadn't bothered to turn on a light, he just pulled his blankets over them, curling on his side to go to sleep.

Just before he drifted off, he felt Light turn to face him, a tiny noise of pain escaping him, and one hand hesitantly searched for his under the covers. He didn't bother fighting him, letting Light curl only two fingers around his pinky finger. It wouldn't interfere with his sleep to give him that much by way of comfort, after all, and he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

* * *

Light woke the next morning on B's futon, the older man's wide eyes staring into his own from his resting place on Light's chest. His hair brushed his bared skin as B moved to rest his head on its side, blinking almost childishly at him, another smirk forming.

"Were you thinking of him?" Leave it to B to find the most embarrassing question he could possibly ask to sum up the evening's activities. Light was surprisingly honest as he shook his head.

"Really?" B asked, his voice rising a hair from its typical drone. "I wonder if it's just the thrill of danger, kind of like the skanks hanging around gangsters or sheltered girls going after the bikers."

"Have you forgotten who I am?" Light asked, rolling his eyes. "The only reason I'm not dangerous to you is because I don't have your name."

"And that's stopping you?" B ran a finger slowly up Light's throat, making him shiver. "Have I taught you nothing these past few days?"

"I've no intention of killing you the same way you've taught me."

"Nice ambiguous wording, Light. This whole scheme is so you can kill him, isn't it?" Light looked long and hard at him.

"And if it was? Would you stop me?"

"No, I'd only want to watch."

"I thought you were infatuated with him." _Aren't we all?_

"That doesn't mean I don't want him dead." B shifted, resting both hands atop Light's chest and his chin upon them. "Attachments are for humans. I cherish nothing."

"Show me how to be like that." Light whispered, so quietly that he didn't really mean for B to hear him.

"You're learning," B said almost flippantly as he sat up, stretching and popping his spine. Light's eyes roamed the pale, burn-scarred expense of his back, his mind still not fully aware of the decision he had made last night. Aware or not, he was choosing not to be bothered by their increasing intimacy.

Like attracted like, after all. It would have happened sooner or later over the course of this "education". What B didn't know, or was simply ignoring, was the fact that his own teachings were going to get him killed.

Attachments were for humans, after all, and Light Yagami was a god.

-

-

* * *

A/N - Ha, the title was a split-second decision that I left alone. It sums it up pretty well, and it's probably better than just naming it after the AMV that inspired it.

It's also quite rough and probably qualifies as a drabble, since I certainly don't go into how/why the hell B and Light would meet and be so honest with each other, or explain why B's face isn't a mess after the LABB case. Does anyone _really_ care? Not I, so it probably won't get explained, even if I do write a second part. It was just a few images that wouldn't let go of me while I typed it blindly and watched that video on repeat for most of the writing.

Thoughts? Thanks for reading, as always, and not pelting me with rotten fruit for not working on my other fics instead.


	2. Insatiable

A/N - Today, the Muse of Depravity has her fun. I don't know where this came from, but it answers a few questions. If you've read chapter 1, I don't need to warn you about anything.

* * *

Insatiable

-

-

B was turning into the cure for Light's nervousness, even though the other man was often the one to cause it. It only made sense that B's teachings about saturating himself with what frightened him would apply to the man as well, not only the act of killing.

It made everything easier to bear, even if the entire relationship was perversely illogical.

Lying on the futon, Light contemplated the dingy ceiling as he absently wiped blood-speckled hands on his shirt. B hadn't even gotten it all the way off him this time, but considering they had barely closed the door before stumbling to the bed, it didn't bother him. Not even the blood bothered him, for he had gotten used to seeing it every day on the knife or on his hands, tasting it in their kisses, feeling it when B was too rough with him. He could tolerate it while he slept here on sheets stained with more than just semen as long as he could wash it all away in the shower and put on clean clothes, feeling renewed by his morning routine.

He arched his back slightly to try to ease the pain, rolling gingerly onto his side when that proved impossible. Still breathing heavily from exertion, he let his eyes fall shut when he heard the shower turn on in the tiny apartment. The noise was soothing as he untethered his thoughts and let them drift, contemplating what had brought him to this point.

Sex by itself was an amazing distraction from any misgivings Light might have had about killing someone and watching them die.

Sex with a serial killer, especially one with a penchant for pain, obliterated _any _errant thought in his head. Light doubted he could even recall his name in the height of it, his entire existence narrowed to sensation and gross motor skills. All he could do was react to what was happening to him.

The glimmers of fear that still surfaced every now and then when he thought about with whom he was associating and the heinous acts he was committing vanished when they were together, simple memories buried beneath the overwhelming physical sensations. If ever he started to dwell on the anxiety, he reached for B and it vanished. By facing his fear, it was losing its power over him. He barely remembered what it felt like anymore to be nervous, to worry,…

To feel human.

He certainly wasn't thinking about murder, about how much his hands used to shake in anticipation beforehand and nausea afterward. He wasn't thinking about the consequences of his actions.

He didn't even think about L. How could he? No matter how appealing he might have found the other man's intelligence or wondered in the past what it might be like to have more than a friendship with someone who fascinated him beyond reason, L wasn't here. There was no ignoring B, who was right in front of him rather than hiding behind a wall of apathy and disinterest somewhere miles away.

B's hands, those attenuated fingers, the strangely sharp teeth, the ragged fingernails were everywhere, scoring red lines into his flesh and wrenching screams from him that he had stopped trying to suppress. He had drawn blood biting down on his fingers or just clenching his jaw at first, but he found that screaming seemed to lessen the agony, for agony it was. Any embarrassment Light might have felt at being so intimate and vulnerable with the older man was gone, forgotten in the sheer savagery of the act.

At least he had gotten B to stop biting his throat. It would be hard to cover up those obvious teeth marks with anything other than a scarf or turtleneck, and L would certainly wonder why he was wearing them for days when he returned to the headquarters. The scratches along his sides and stinging all across his back were another story. They were just another distraction, another thing to take his mind off the here and now.

As he sat up slowly, wincing at the inevitable pain as he contemplated joining B in the shower, one thing surfaced in his mind.

B was a _horrible_ lover: insensitive, deaf to criticism or suggestions, and completely oblivious to any needs Light might have had other than the obvious.

He was an excellent _fuck, _however, and Light had no intention of wasting the opportunity to lose his human side in simple sensation. It didn't change the fact that B's time was running out. As soon as he outlived his usefulness…

He would cease to be.

* * *

Light Yagami had a masochistic streak a mile wide. There was little besides pain that he could expect to get from B, at least in bed, so why would he continue this farce of a romance?

B turned the water temperature up a little higher and scrubbed at his scalp, feeling his muscles relax even further in the heat. He had left his strangely willing partner lying in bed, where Light was probably trying to conceal the fact that he couldn't walk without limping. He usually waited for B to leave the room before trying to stand, still clinging to the illusion of his pride, which he had sacrificed in tears at the beginning of this twisted affair.

There was no explanation other than masochism for why he put up with B, except for his obvious attraction to B's amorality and the power it gave him. He knew he had no skill at the pleasurable side of sex, for one hardly became a better lover in prison, where the only object was to exert one's power over someone else for however long it took to sate one's needs. B had been in too much pain to defend himself at the beginning of his incarceration, and the fact that even an average person outweighed his sickly skinny frame by 50 pounds…

He tried not to recall what happened in those early months, though the things they had called him still rung in his ears. _Bottom-boy. Bitch._ There were many more, mostly related to his scarred condition, though his looks hadn't stopped them. Even after he regained his lost weight and strength, his reputation as one of the 'prison queens' was too set in stone to change. It only took more of them to subdue him.

He felt his lip curl as he rubbed shampoo into his hair, burying the nightmares under memories of a beautiful, impressionable child that was all too willing to subject himself to B's ministrations. He didn't even have to force him; Light asked for it, his hands and his mouth seeking B out even outside the apartment, that golden skin still spangled with crimson droplets after one more meal ticket went down. The violence defined every facet of their relationship.

He was too lucky. Not that he cared for Light as anything other than a temporary distraction, but he wasn't about to throw away this chance to have someone that good-looking be with him of his own free will. As he rinsed the sweet-smelling suds out of his thick hair, he let his eyes close and just stood under the spray, relishing the feel of having the room to himself, not full of other inmates.

Why he had waited as long as he had to escape was beyond him. It had to be the complacency that was being bred into them so all that they saw were the next freedoms that they could earn with their good behavior, the next new book in the library, the next time they could use the computers, the next time they could go outdoors. Disgusting, the level to which he had sunk, until there was nothing left of him but a hollow-eyed drone who still feared the bathrooms years after getting there. He could have stopped eating, but the body resisted dying so passively, and he had already failed multiple attempts to kill himself. He couldn't even kill himself on accident; that was the only explanation for how he had gotten out without dying from blood loss due to the razor wire. It wasn't as though most of his limbs weren't already horribly scarred, and he didn't care if there were a few more now.

Finding Light had been a lucky break; there was no other term for it. He had come to Japan to find L since he knew the man would be in the vicinity, unable to resist the danger. He hadn't counted on running into such a useful tool while on his way to look for accommodations in one of the seedier areas. The red-light district always heralded the outskirts of the ghetto, and he hadn't had trouble finding that, the garish neon beckoning to him like a painted whore. The district itself held no appeal, but there were always the people he was looking for secreted into the alleys and posing on the doorsteps, waiting for a predator like him to relieve them of their valuables, money, drugs, whatever he could get his hands on and sell later.

He slipped into one of the higher-class clubs right on the edge of the reputable part of town, requisitioning a seat at the bar a few chairs away from another patron, ignoring the bartender's look of mild disgust at his dress. The bouncer had let him in the front door, so this idiot had no right to complain about how he looked, especially when he ordered top-shelf bourbon and pulled a small wad of cash out of his pocket to pay for it.

The other patron was sitting with his chin in one hand, his fingers obscuring too much of his face for B to know his name from this angle. His eyes roamed the televisions around them without much interest despite the lurid displays on some of them. It even disgusted B, who was still somewhat sensitive from being at the receiving end of too much of that activity. He decided that the sooner he could find another source of income, the better, so he could get out of here.

Surreptitiously, he let his eyes roam over the other man's figure, trying to judge from his clothing how much he might be carrying and whether it would be worth his while to tail him or just leave as soon as he was finished with his drink. It was hard to see in the dimness of the club, but in the glare from the televisions, he could make out a few details. His clothes were high-quality, his hair impeccable; this was probably a salaryman, though a young one. Fortunate for him, since the younger they were, the more foolish they were. The young man swirled what was left of his martini once and tipped it back, still looking completely bored with the display around him as he bit an olive off the toothpick that had rested in the bottom of the glass.

Drawing his feet up into the chair so he could emulate L's 'thinking position', B noticed the other man turn his head at the movement. The result was instantaneous.

"_**Ryuzaki?!**_" he gasped, turning his head completely and actually dropping his glass in the process as he slid off his barstool. B had no ears for the dim shatter of glass, only for the fact that this 'Yagami Tsuki' had no death date. Was this another one like himself, with the Eyes?

When the term of address registered to him, he shot out one hand and pulled the younger man closer. B could feel his pulse racing through the veins in his wrist, though the boy's expression changed to one of consternation when he got a better look at B's face.

"Who--?" he started to ask, but B cut him off.

"How did you know that name?" he hissed. Alias it might be, but it was still the name he had used during the LABB murders, not even remotely similar to his real name. There was no way this random person knew who he was since Beyond Birthday had no connection to Ryuzaki Rue.

No matter who this child was, he could take him out of here and kill him in the nearest alley to keep the knowledge from getting out. He wanted answers right now, and he could feel himself growing frantic.

"How can you not see my _real_ name? _You have no death date!_" He kept his voice low to keep from drawing any more attention to himself, but it was hard not to shout from the tension.

It clicked as the wrist he was clinging to twisted hard as 'Tsuki' tried to wrench it out of his grip.

"I'm sorry, I mistook you for someone else," the younger man's cool voice answered with a hint of a snarl in it. There was momentary fear mixed with the condescension in those eyes; B knew it like he knew his own face given where he had lived the last few years.

He had _recognized_ him, and there was no one that he could mistake B for with clothing and unique looks such as his, except for...

"You know him, don't you?" he purred, drawing the struggling younger man closer. "You know _L_, Yagami Tsuki," he whispered in his ear when he brought him close enough that his admission wouldn't be audible to anyone else. To his surprise, he stopped fighting, instead going still as amber eyes looked into his own.

"Are you finished drinking? I'd like to speak to you outside." He seemed to mature in that moment, suddenly sounding self-assured and in control of the situation. B turned and finished off a $35 shot, wasting it by not savoring it but curious where this was going.

"I am now."

The rest, as they say, was history. Their actions had inadvertently revealed their identities, and working together had seemed the best way to make sure neither party went anywhere with the information. It wasn't as if B cared that Light was Kira since he didn't know B's real name, and Light had no reason to want someone formerly from Wammy House dead if B was only helping him.

So they indulged in each other along the way; it was only sex and it meant nothing. When Light achieved his goal of killing L, he wanted to see the man's face, nothing more. He wanted to finally see L with his own eyes, read his full name and his death date. It would give him closure, perhaps, and he could die happy, or at least content. After that, he and Light might part paths, they might kill each other. It meant little to him.

A hand settled on his shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie.

He whipped around, flinging out an arm and grabbing his assailant by the throat. As he slammed him against the flimsy shower wall, he held his other arm across the man's throat, choking off his air supply. The sounds of him strangling only fueled his blind rage at being attacked again, the too-vivid past rising up and obliterating the present.

"B—!" he heard the sound finally gasped out, the speaker in breathless agony as limbs belatedly raised to try to push him away. As the red and black spots cleared from before his eyes, his chestnut-haired Adonis stared back at him, his lips bluing from the lack of oxygen, distended eyes wide with terror as the shower tracked streams of water down his face that looked like tears.

Light was… so beautiful like that, and B had never been so hard in his life.

Then Light was in his arms, and there was no room for reason anymore.

-

-

* * *

A/N - This is getting continued as my more twisted Muses play with it. I know it's short! It was just to get the kinky Muses off my back while I try to work on other stories.


	3. Kiss of Death

Kiss of Death

* * *

Light coughed dryly while seated on the futon. It still hurt too much for him to be able to sit on the floor in the kitchen. He pulled up one knee and rested his elbow on it, running his fingers through hair still wet from the shower.

B held out a can of oolong tea in what might have been an apology and Light took it without looking at him. He had never been one for canned _anything_, but B preferred to subsist on canned and pre-made food rather than cooking his own.

He focused on opening the drink rather than meeting B's eyes, and the feet finally moved away from him, headed back into the kitchen. As he watched them go, he thought there was really nothing of L in B's feet; L would have shuffled.

He swallowed, and the pain brought him back to the present. His throat felt raw, bruised. He hadn't been able to make more than a squeak after B tried to crush his trachea. Since he couldn't talk anymore without coughing, he said nothing. It was humiliating for him to be robbed of such a simple act.

It was one thing to appreciate the near-violence elsewhere in their perverse relationship and quite another to have B attempt to kill him, in the _shower_, no less. The pain in one case was entirely justified.

Holding the can wet with condensation to the front of his neck, he tried not to spill it as he waited to see if the cold had any effect on the bruising. It didn't, so he drank it instead, feeling as if he was relearning how to swallow as the ache almost made him cringe. The cool liquid gave a measure of comfort but not enough for him to want to try to speak again.

"Heads up," B said from the kitchen, and Light looked up to see a tube sailing through the air. He snatched it before it could hit him in the face and opened his palm. When he saw what it was, he couldn't stop the ironic smile that formed; only B could think to show him this _after_ what he had just put Light through without it. Twice, no less.

He held up the lube and waved it back and forth, an irritated question on his face as he finally looked in B's direction.

"It beats the alternatives." B shrugged off Light's accusation and went back to rifling through the cupboards. "I picked it up while you were looking at the newspapers."

Light smacked it on the wooden edge of the futon frame to get B's attention again and mouthed "You forgot?" when he turned to look.

"You try remembering such trivialities when being dragged through the front door by a very _enthusiastic _lover." B leered when he said that, and Light flushed at the loathsome term applied to himself. It made him sick to think that the other man might consider him that. When the dark-haired man left the room, Light let his revulsion show as he breathed out a sigh.

He needed to go back to the investigation. L would probably wonder why he had been gone so long without going back home.

_L..._

The name now conjured entirely different feelings than it had a mere week ago. He had been a weakling when he fled but now there was nothing to stop him from returning to the headquarters. He could face the man without second-guessing his decision.

The twisted solace that he found after dropping his guard with someone wearing L's face had shown him that his attraction to the detective was the mere product of unresolved sexual frustration. The fact that B was teaching him how to kill remorselessly, even in person, was an added bonus.

In the past, he might have thought of L's title with reverence or even trusting camaraderie given his naïve state without the Death Note. Now, the letter bore the marks of a passing interest, nothing more. He only wanted the closeness to L in order to gain his trust before killing him.

The closeness to B he wanted for another reason entirely. It wasn't only to sate his filthy human desires; it was to crush the lingering fear of _anything_. This man posed a greater threat to him than L given that B _knew_ who and what he was, had murdered previously, and was in close quarters with him. B was even a proverbial loose cannon given his unprecedented attack on Light today. Every time Light turned his back on him, he wondered if it would be the last time he did so.

However, as he had hoped, living in constant fear was taking the edge off the feeling, wearing it away bit by bit. He wondered how much longer it would take before he felt nothing, both when he looked into B's murderous gaze and when he contemplated writing L's true name into his Death Note.

* * *

There were no bruises forming on Light's skin, miraculously. B studied the expanse turned porcelain by the light streaming through the window, the moon bleaching the color from that golden skin and casting everything into sharp black and white.

Light dozed on his back beside him, blissfully unguarded. For the first few days, he had slept on the worn sofa that B had found in a secondhand store, wrapped in a blanket and curled on his side to protect himself. After their relationship progressed, Light dropped all of his barriers and slept in the bed with him, although he didn't touch B in his sleep again after that first time.

The person that had woken that first morning in his bed still had Light's face, but there was a ruthless and calculating persona lingering behind his eyes, one that thrilled B to see. Light had so many facets, all of them fascinating.

He had thoroughly enjoyed seeing every expression, every emotion cross that face, finding new ways of drawing out the person hiding behind those cool eyes. Light couldn't hide when there was pain involved, yet despite it, he didn't shy away from B's advances. He welcomed them, even outside the apartment.

Especially outside the apartment, where there was little B could do about the desire the younger man created in him. Light was most eager and willing after a kill, clinging to him almost desperately while B stood in seeming impassivity, keenly aware of the public nature of their surroundings. He hadn't lived as long as he had by dropping his guard, no matter how appealing this incubus might be. In contrast, when they did reach the apartment, it was B who craved and Light who went along with it.

Being indoors turned Light into a cold fish in some ways. He didn't want to be kissed or caressed if it kept them from coming together, turning his head away from B even as he grappled blindly for the top of B's jeans. B put up with it, merely wanting the foreplay so Light didn't needlessly suffer through the entire experience. After all, he did want to keep doing it and didn't want to frighten Light away by hurting him too badly every time.

However, it seemed that no measure of pain would deter him so B accepted Light's idiosyncrasies as a strange tendency toward exhibitionism. The boy was handsome enough to relish being stared at, and when denied an audience, Light likely lost the desire to perform.

Insulting as it was, B didn't care enough to object. The minor blow to his pride was worth sex with this chestnut-haired god, this perfect specimen.

He found himself reaching out, his bone-white fingers spilling shadows of black ink over the ribs left exposed by the blanket. B flexed his digits, watching the silhouettes on Light's chest dance. Ever so slowly, B let his hand descend to touch the pad of one finger to the bottom of Light's rib cage, ghosting it along the curve and doubling back to trace the depression beneath, the whole surface rising and falling slightly with Light's breath.

He let his palm drift mere millimeters over Light's chest, occasionally brushing that velvety smoothness when Light inhaled and drew them closer together. He could feel the heat of Light's body collecting under his hand; his poorer circulation and the fact that his hands were usually cooler was a source of constant irritation for Light, but he made B warmer in so many ways that the younger man's ire was no deterrent.

B's caresses would only annoy Light, but Light was a magnet, an inexorable force pulling B into him. He could not back away, just as he could not relinquish his desire to find L.

Closing his eyes, B let his hand settle on Light's ribs, his fingers slowly melting into the skin atop the fragile bones rather than just sliding down them. He traced each indentation as if taking an inventory, feeling the faint pulse vibrating through Light's skeleton.

The steady breathing hitched, shuddering through B's fingers, but he didn't take his hand away.

"What are you doing?" The soft whisper drifted over to him. There was a note of ever-present annoyance in it. Likely, Light wanted to snap at him but couldn't do so with his throat still so sore.

"Counting your ribs," B replied in a similarly low voice, finally opening his eyes to see that Light had turned his head toward him. The expression on Light's face was passive, unreadable when over half of it was cast into inky darkness by the moonlight, a mere crescent visible when carved out of the shadow.

"Sounds fascinating." Familiar sarcasm.

"It has its appeal." B waited for Light to flick his fingers off him since this probably constituted unwelcome foreplay.

Air rushed out of Light's nose in a highly uncharacteristic snort of derision, the rude noise seemingly incompatible with those refined features. "Are you a nympho_maniac_?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." B's hand stilled, fingertips resting atop Light's sternum before the younger man pushed him away. His eyes stayed fixed on B.

"Isn't twice in a day enough? Just get it over with." Light rolled his head back in exasperation and closed his eyes, leaving his throat exposed as one dog did when submitting to another.

"I'm not interested in that right now." B had simply wanted to _touch_ him for reasons even he didn't understand. Light was delectable even in slumber, perhaps especially so since he wasn't speaking.

"Then stop bothering me. I'm trying to sleep." With that aggravated whisper, Light rolled onto his side, facing away from B.

The silvery line painted by the moon followed the gentle curves of Light's shoulder, chest, and the start of one hip as the blanket shifted with his movement. B stared, both hypnotized by the simple beauty of it and inexplicably angry, his earlier contemplative mood dissolving.

His heartbeat thudded in his head as the hand that had been touching Light fisted, the skin pulling so taut over his knuckles that he expected to hear it rip.

How B wanted to take hold of that foolish boy and tell him not to fuck with him. People died for less of an insult than Light had been getting away with these last few days, making B feel like he was privileged to be the one sleeping with him. Maybe he needed to force Light's face into the mattress, grabbing his slender neck and taking him from behind, taunting him with his own powerlessness to stop B from taking his pleasure.

Who did Light think was dominant in this relationship, anyway? Didn't he know how lucky he was not to be dead? His lifeless _corpse_ would probably be far more amenable...

Even as the thought occurred to him, a shudder of utter revulsion swept through him, leaving him nearly dizzy in its wake. He pulled his hand back, away from the adder in his bed who mocked B with his flippant dismissal.

A minute later, he watched Light from across the tiny room, curled on his side on the sofa. Not even he knew exactly from what he was hiding.

* * *

A/N - Perhaps a misleading chapter title, but it fits into where the story is going given that the title is _Fatal_ Attraction, after all.

This was supposed to be a Valentine's Day update, but my Muses are increasingly sluggish given my dopey, medication-induced state. Yes, I choose to acknowledge the commercialized, capitalistic holiday celebrating love, lust, and other romanticized crap by updating what is perhaps my most sordid, anti-romantic story. (although it is the second most-requested update, which surprised me)

The chapter was supposed to be longer, but I'm nodding off on the keys in the middle of the day, so here's what I have. I hope to put up more soon if I can have the simultaneous courage and energy to type it.


End file.
